The author of Hebrews, in chapter 3, wants those who claim to be believers in Christ to consider Him carefully and to learn even more about Him. There are people who go to great pains to find out about their family. Sometimes people are trying to find out about their ancestors from many generations in the past. In other cases, people are looking for long lost relatives, siblings, parents, or children. There are many reasons for this but frequently it is because that relationship will explain something about the searcher. In the same way, the better we understand Jesus Christ and our relationship to Him, the better we will understand who we are and what we are to be in this world.
So in Hebrews we see that the writer is comparing Jesus to Moses. Both men were faithful in the house that God had given them, but the faithfulness of Christ is superior to the faithfulness of Moses because the house that Christ was given was His own. Moses was given responsibility over the nation of Israel, but they were not his chosen people. They were God’s. He was faithful in God’s house but Jesus as God was faithful in His own house. That house, according to verse 6, is all of those who believe in Jesus Christ and hold fast in their faith until the end.
As we have already seen, faith in Christ alone for salvation is a crucial theme of Paul’s writings. Through this faith by the grace of God, the Body of Christ made up of believing Jews and Gentiles obtains righteousness. The writer of Hebrews, however, has a much different audience of Jews (and possibly proselytes). Some of those Jews are vacillating in their faith. One of the questions that Hebrews answers is this, “What if someone begins in the faith, believing in Jesus Christ, and then rejects Jesus and rejects faith in Him?” According to Hebrews 3:6, that person is not part of the house of God, that is, not part of the family of God.
Now these are hard words, but they are very important. If someone does not remain in the faith then it is clear they are not a part of God’s house. We can go even further, as John did in his first epistle (2:18-27), and say that those who turn from a faith in Christ which they previously professed were from the beginning never truly in the faith; that is, they were never really a part of God’s house. This is reflected in other general epistles like James (“faith without works is dead”) and 2 Peter (“the dog has returned to his vomit”).
With so many epistles dealing with this theme, it is clear that the departure of some from the faith is a problem. As the writer to the Hebrews writes, it is for that reason we need to consider Jesus.
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